Steve Jobs’ birth mom was a coed college student who was forced by her family to get rid of her baby. In the pre-Roe v. Wade days this meant adoption; today it means the final solution. How many Steve Jobs-like babies never had a chance or choice to invent the iPhone? About 40 million “choice babies” who had no choice. 

— Ed Smetana, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Don’t blame laity

Re: “Catholic lethargy in public square” (Essay, Oct. 30). 

Russell Shaw’s focus seems misplaced — the lack of effort on the part of lay Catholics. It seems to me that the main problem is lack of focus and lack of teaching on the part of the clergy. It has been my experience that many (most?) clergy do not read these documents, so how can one expect the rank-and-file layperson to do so? The Church needs to do more than put out documents — there needs to be actual follow-up. 

— Tom Bobrowski, via email

No comparison

There is much to commend OSV’s editorial (“Populism and politics,” Oct. 30). However, the attempt to equate the tea party movement with the lawless, incoherent mob that has been labeled “Occupy Wall Street” amounts to convenient and sloppy intellectualism. The differences are wide and deep and readily available to any objective investigator. 

To be sure, your call for personal responsibility is laudable, precise and correct. But when charity is replaced by “rights,” then gratitude is replaced by “claims” and “claims” breed greed and resentment. Witness our European brethren. 

Unfortunately we are a fallen crowd, and sainthood is no more available on Wall Street than in Washington, D.C. — or on Main Street, for that matter. What we might hope for is a little more intellectual care in the evaluation of facts, data and opinion. 

— Richard E. Whicker, Toms River, N.J.

Unfair remarks

I think the writer of the Oct. 30 editorial owes an apology, or at least a correction, for equating the numerous vile and destructive acts (many caught on news media cameras) of the progressive Occupy Wall Street demonstrators to a single act of a tea party member allegedly spitting and making a racist remark. Incidentally, there is a sizeable reward for anyone who can prove the latter actually happened. 

Tea party demonstrators generally cleaned up after their short demonstrations, whereas it will cost taxpayers millions to clean up and repair damage done by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. 

I am a 90-year-old faithful Catholic and have been a OSV subscriber for many years. I urge you to please try to keep the political moralizing honest and balanced, particularly in light of the upcoming elections. 

— Alvin L. Kirtz, San Clemente, Calif.

Peaceful vs. destructive

My husband and I subscribe to several of your periodicals and are seriously considering cancelling all our subscriptions after reading the Oct. 30 editorial. As individuals who identify with the tea party, we were upset to see the article referencing the tea party spitting on lawmakers and chanting racist slogans. We expect better reporting from a Catholic periodical. This line regurgitates the mainstream liberal media bias. With research, the author would find that in the case you referenced, there is no proof these events happened.  

If these events would happen at any tea party event, they would not represent the ideology of the tea party and would be the work of an isolated individual or group and not the tea party as a whole. Since I doubt any of you have ever been to a tea party event, I’ll tell you they are peaceful and orderly, unlike the Occupy Wall Street protests. To draw any comparison between the two or to present the “fringe elements” as equally influential to the movements in a shallow attempt to appear neutral is dishonest journalism at best and scandalous at worst. 

— John and Lynn Barnett, Pearland, Texas